Star Odyssey

The old man’s expression changed as he looked at Lu Yin. Sometimes, his expression was strange while at other times, his eyes twinkled as if he were contemplating something abstruse. When he saw the perfect galaxy that was produced with Lu Yin’s ninth star, the surprise on his face became even more apparent. This did not seem like the true Cosmic Art.

“The true Cosmic Art requires one to open up thirty six meridians and completely rid themselves of all weak points. This youngster activated his Cosmic Art forcefully and managed to draw out most of its power, but that’ll only work for a while. The Cosmic Art isn’t something that just anyone can simulate. He’ll need to go to the Cosmic Sect at some point.” The old man then fell deep in thought, his eyes twinkling the entire time.

A while later, he seemed to make a decision, and with a light tap of his finger, a strong wind blew forth and struck the back of Lu Yin’s head, causing him to faint again. During his time on this planet, it seemed that Lu Yin had never managed to fall asleep normally; he kept cycling between a conscious and unconscious state.

The old man walked to Lu Yin’s side and lifted up the soles of his feet. “This is where the thirty-six meridians lie. To learn the authentic Cosmic Art, it’s necessary to open all of them up. I wonder what those old guys at the Cosmic Sect would do if they saw what’s on the bottom of your feet. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to see their faces.” After saying this, he activated his star energy and began carving something into the soles of Lu Yin’s feet.

“The moment the drawing on the bottom of your feet is exposed, your fate will be changed. I hope that you’ll be able to handle it when the time comes,” the old man muttered to himself as he stared at Lu Yin with a complex expression. He had long since undone the dark seal within the youth since there was no longer any need for it. He had merely wanted to foster a sliver of hope for himself, but now, everything depended on this kid’s luck. He had the Cosmic Sect as his background and a lot more opportunities than most. However, why would a disciple of the Cosmic Sect be in the Outerverse? It didn’t make any sense. On top of that, Lu Yin had said that he didn’t know anything about the Cosmic Sea and had been so convincing that the elder had actually believed him.

Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter even if the kid was a traitor to the Cosmic Sect. As long as his Cosmic Art was not destroyed, there would be a chance. Besides, the fact that this kid had managed to cultivate the technique to the stage of manifesting nine stars meant he had somebody powerful backing him up.

The old man would have never even dreamed that Lu Yin had actually stolen his Cosmic Art and that he genuinely knew nothing about the Cosmic Sea. The Cosmic Sect treated the Cosmic Art as a treasure, and the old man did not think that it was even possible to steal that technique; it was all a huge misunderstanding. Whether or not Lu Yin would visit the Cosmic Sect in the future or if the drawings at the bottom of his feet would ever be revealed was something that nobody knew.

Sometime later, Lu Yin regained consciousness and rubbed his temples. What’s going on? I randomly fainted again. Could it be an aftereffect of memorizing the Stonewall Scriptures?

Lu Yin looked up at the scriptures, but what he saw only left him more confused. All of the text had been erased and all that was left were numbers. What was going on? He looked around, searching for the old man.

A piece of meat flew in front of him. Lu Yin grabbed it and looked towards the entrance of the cave as the old man walked over. “Eat that and keep memorizing.”

Lu Yin was speechless. “Seriously? Even the numbers?”

“Cut the crap and just do what I tell you to,” the old man shouted back.

Lu Yin felt an urge to curse the old man; the numbers covered the entirety of the stone wall. It had taken him nearly a month to memorize all of the text from before, but now there was a set of numbers too?!

“Don’t worry. These numbers won’t put much pressure on you, and you’ll be able to memorize them very quickly,” the old man explained when he saw Lu Yin looking increasingly dispirited.

Only after hearing that did Lu Yin perk up a bit. If there wasn’t any spiritual pressure, then it wouldn’t be too difficult to memorize all of these numbers. He was a Melder, after all, and his five senses had become much more sensitive than before.

“By the way, I remember you said that you had comprehended battle force. Give it a go,” the old man suddenly said.

Lu Yin was slightly confused, but he did as the old man asked. Streams of air circled around him. Then, black battle force immediately covered his entire body before purple lines emerged within that. Black battle force with purple lines—this was the hallmark characteristic of three-lined battle force.

Lu Yin looked at his own body in disbelief. Three lines? How did I improve so much? He should have only been at the initial stages of battle force.

The old man, on the other hand, was not surprised at all. “As I thought, your body has very good potential, and you managed to jump from the beginning stages to three lines, which isn’t too bad. Compared to the people in your generation, you’re relatively strong.”

“How’s this possible?” Lu Yin was still confused.

The old man snickered. “Because you died.”

Lu Yin was bewildered.

The old man’s lips curved up as he matter-of-factly explained, “There’s a very strange technique that exists in the universe called the Arcane Art - Fatal Revival. This technique isn’t difficult in and of itself, but the requirements to train in it are very specific. Almost nobody in the universe can do it, as it’s meant for the dead.”

Lu Yin narrowed his eyes as he continued to stare at the old man.

“When you first fell to this planet, you activated your battle techniques to the extreme so that you wouldn’t get eaten. You then had a stand-off with those slaves for days. When I finally found you, you immediately fainted, though fainting is the wrong word. You actually died there.” The old man observed Lu Yin’s reaction. When he saw that Lu Yin was still confused, the old man continued, saying, “I manipulated your energy to activate the Fatal Revival. The technique can’t heal your injuries. Rather, it actually makes things worse. I tested that technique on you out of curiosity, but you somehow lived, so I guess you managed to succeed in learning this technique.”

“How did I survive?” Lu Yin asked with a frown.

“How would I know? Either way, you’re alive. I told you before that, with your injuries, most people wouldn’t survive for more than a day no matter how powerful they were. Being that severely injured is as good as being dead. I made you use that technique purely out of curiosity, but since you’re alive, you’ll be able to reap the benefits from it,” the old man said enviously.

Lu Yin smiled wryly. “I’ve already trained in many other techniques. It’ll be impossible for me to work on any more.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t need to put any time into training it because only the dead can do so. It’s only use is to make one last gamble. If you die, that’s it, but if you live, then congratulations. You’ll undergo a huge transformation, just like now,” the old man said.

Lu Yin looked at his hands, which still had purple lines flowing through them. He could sense that he’d gotten markedly stronger. This was what he had received in exchange for gambling with his life.

“Does this mean that I can keep using Fatal Revival to upgrade my battle force?” Lu Yin asked. If his battle force could improve this much with each usage, anybody would be eager to use such a technique again.

The old man shook his head. “Like I already said, it can’t be trained at will, which means that you can’t deliberately use it. It’s a gamble. At the moment of your death, it compresses and ignites all of your potential. Everyone has some regenerative ability, but Fatal Revival does not activate this potential, and it actually suppresses a person’s regenerative abilities so that their injuries will worsen. The potential will then be transformed into strength. When you die, you lose everything, but if you live, all that strength will return to you. You don’t need to be so surprised that your battle force grew so much stronger, because you received that in exchange for nearly dying.”

Lu Yin eyed the old man, “So you’re saying that you used the technique on me not because you wanted to save me, but because you were curious?”

The old man proudly admitted to it.

Lu Yin looked away. Nobody would believe such a fantastic tale. This old man had clearly been hoping to find someone who was able to memorize those scriptures so that he could send them to a specific person. However, the place that the elder was speaking of was far too dangerous, which was why he had kept gambling on trying to find someone who could survive through Fatal Revival. Whoever managed to survive would become much stronger and would naturally have a better chance of success of fulfilling his mission. Lu Yin definitely wasn’t the only one whom the old man had used the technique on, but he was almost certainly the only one to have survived.

The old man was truly quite merciless. When he had found Lu Yin, the young man had been practically dead, but the old man had still used a technique that suppressed his regenerative abilities. It was essentially murder, and the fact that Lu Yin had been able to survive was truly a miracle.

“Back in the day, there was someone who was envious of the technique, but was too afraid to train in it. However, to satisfy his curiosity, he found ten thousand geniuses and used the technique on them after killing them. Unfortunately, they all died. From that point on, the technique was forgotten,” the old man muttered as he looked at Lu Yin with envy in his eyes.

Lu Yin chuckled. “With your current state, it seems like you’re already ready to train in the Arcane Art - Fatal Revival. Keep working on it. Who knows, you might get a lot stronger and be able to fly out of here.”

“Fly out? Kid, do you seriously think that I’m not even an Explorer? Let me tell you this—at my peak, I was able to vaporize over a hundred of planets like this with a single slap,” the old man said disdainfully.

Lu Yin rolled his eyes. Who would believe that drivel? Even a Hunter would be hard-pressed to destroy so many planets in one move!

“Enough of that. Cut the crap and keep memorizing the scriptures.” The old man pushed him forward.

Lu Yin had no choice but to look at the stone wall and continue memorizing the numbers that seemed to have no pattern.

Although there were a lot of numbers, he managed to memorize everything relatively quickly because there wasn’t any spiritual pressure. To ensure that he wouldn’t forget it, the old man even forced him to recite all of the numbers and text that he had written down on stone wall before. The numbers weren’t difficult to memorize and recite, but the text was more of a challenge. Each time, he could only recite a little before fainting, after which he would wake up and start over. This cycle continued for another half month.

For the last ten days, Lu Yin had done the daily hunting. While Lu Yin was well aware that the old man was very powerful, he still felt uncomfortable making an elderly man go out and find food. When he saw the desiccated ground and the nearby slaves digging up ore, Lu Yin felt rather pressured. He looked up at the sky where thick, dark-red clouds covered the planet. This place felt like a graveyard.

Tzz tzz 

Lu Yin heard a chilling sound behind him, and when he turned around, he saw some strange, gigantic bugs with gigantic jaws lunging at Lu Yin. Each bug was strong enough to bite through metal and tear through the earth with a single snap. The slaves could only run away when they saw these bugs, but these creatures were Lu Yin and the old man’s food.

With a boom, Lu Yin killed a bug. As he retracted his hand, he looked at the three lines of battle force covering his body in wonder as he could clearly sense how powerful he had become. What level would he be at in an academy? An Area Master? An ordinary Area Master was definitely no longer a match for him. Frankfurt only had two-lined battle force. Lu Yin might even be strong enough to claim the title of the strongest Area Master.

He wondered when he would be able to return to the academy. Lu Yin looked up again and then dragged the huge bug back to the cave.

At this point, there was only half a month left until the Astral Combat Tournament.

Lu Yin left the bug at the entrance to the cave, where he saw the old man gazing at the sky. He asked, “What are you looking at?”

The old man frowned. “Something’s strange. Nobody’s come to collect the ores for a whole month.”

Lu Yin’s eyes lit up. “Collecting ores? Who does this planet belong to? Who collects the ores? And how frequently?”

The old man eyed Lu Yin. “You really want to go back?”

“Obviously,” Lu Yin retorted.

The old man burst into laughter before replying, “Don’t you know how much stronger you’ve become over these last two and a half months?”

“Does it matter even if I become invincible? There’s no point if all I can do is stare at your face.” Lu Yin rolled his eyes.

The old man monotonously answered, “This planet belongs to the Leo clan.”

Lu Yin was shocked. “The Leo clan?”

The old man nodded.

“That doesn’t make any sense. I was attacked in the pirate port, which means that the Leo Clan should have been attacked by enemies and might have even been destroyed. How could the perpetrators be the Leo Clan?” Lu Yin was confused.

The old man contemptuously answered, “Don’t dismiss all the possibilities before coming to a conclusion. The truth is that this planet really does belong to the Leo clan.”